Finding Aslan
by Hasufel
Summary: Takes place in our world after Last Battle. Ever since her family died, Susan has been trying to find Aslan again. Now, at 80 years old, she is on her death bed. Is it too late? Oneshot.


**Finding Aslan**

A/N: I own nothing. Characters belong to C.S. Lewis, a far better writer than I will ever be. Apologies in advance for any grammatical errors, I've gotten precious little sleep the past few nights!

_Summary: Ever since her family died, Susan has been trying to find Aslan again. Now, at 80 years old, she is on her death bed. Is it too late? Oneshot._

Susan Pevensie lay on the bed in her hospital room without moving. Dimly she was aware of the swarm of nurses bustling in and out, and of the fact that there were several different doctors speaking in low, worried voices. None of that mattered, though, and she perceived it all from far away, as though it were happening to someone else. She knew perfectly well that her body was giving out on her; after 80 years, it was hardly a surprise. But there was nothing for her there in the hospital room…no family, no one to hold her hand and speak to her as she lay there. She was alone.

So instead she allowed her thoughts to drift far, far away from her lonely deathbed. She thought wistfully of her family, gone for so long—Peter, Edmund, Lucy…

The memory of the day she received news of their deaths came flooding back, just as vivid as the day it actually happened…

She had been in America on holiday, visiting some of her cousins. One perfectly ordinary afternoon, she was sitting in the kitchen with her cousin Hannah, laughing and discussing what they were planning to wear to the formal dinner they were attending that evening. They had just entered into a good-natured argument over which hairstyles would accentuate their outfits best, when Susan's aunt had entered the room, holding a piece of paper.

The woman's face was pale, drawn, and streaked with tears. Horrified, Susan and Hannah listened as she informed them in a trembling voice that Susan's mother had been killed in a railway accident, along with her husband, Peter, Edmund, and Lucy.

At this news, Hannah promptly burst into tears, and fled upstairs to her bedroom. Ignoring her aunt's tentative attempt to hug her, Susan rose slowly and walked out the back door into the yard. She felt as if she was frozen, made of stone. She could not summon tears to her eyes, though she wanted to. She had loved her parents dearly, but ever since childhood she had been particularly close with her three siblings. Though in recent years they had drifted apart somewhat over that whole 'Narnia' affair, she was still very fond of her siblings. The fact that they were dead, was just—incomprehensible. How could it possibly be true?

_Aslan,_ the thought flitted through her mind briefly. _This has something to do with Aslan. _Immediately disgusted with herself, she shook her head. Of course it had nothing to do with 'Aslan'. Aslan was nothing more than a character in one of their old childhood games, long outgrown and forgotten.

_Once again she felt the smooth wood of a bow between her hands, a moving horse between her legs, the smell of woods and fresh, beautiful Narnian air._

"No," she murmured aloud, shaking her head to clear it. Why did her thoughts keep returning to that fantasy? There was no Aslan. There was no Narnia.

_Is that what you truly believe? _her treacherous thoughts whispered. _Or is that what you have decided to believe, because it's easier?_

She buried her face in her hands, and finally the tears began to flow. _Dead…_her parents, Peter, Edmund, Lucy…all dead…

_Maybe they aren't dead, not truly. Maybe they've just…gone to Narnia._

Raising her head, she closed her eyes. Could it be true? Could their childhood fantasies be something more than fantasy after all? Could she be the deluded one? It was completely illogical, of course. But…there was that tiny thread of hope. Perhaps her family wasn't dead, not truly. Perhaps they lived on…in Narnia.

"Could it be real?" she whispered. "Is…Aslan…real?"

Not daring to speak the words aloud, she vowed in her heart that if Narnia really did exist, if Aslan was truly real, she would find him again. She had no idea how, but somehow, before she died…she would find Aslan again.

The years passed, and Susan moved on with her life. She never settled down and married. It just didn't feel _right, _somehow, to do so. She no longer felt 'normal'. She stopped going to fancy dinners and balls, stopped thinking incessantly about her hair and her clothes and boyfriends and dates. Instead, she tried to live up to the example set by her siblings…in honor of their memory, if nothing else. She tried to be kind, like Peter had been. She tried to be loyal and just, as Edmund had been. But most of all, she tried to be like Lucy—believing the best in everybody, willing to have faith no matter what.

She owed it to her siblings, she told herself, to try and be more like them. It was a way of keeping them alive. _And maybe…just maybe, if I'm more like them—more like I used to be—Aslan will remember me, and he'll come._

The years continued to pass. Susan became a schoolteacher, and all of her students loved her. Everyone who knew her remarked on what a wonderful person she was, and the parents of her students were constantly exclaiming over how positive a difference she had made in the lives of their children.

Susan didn't think she was really all that they said she was; her brothers and her sister had been better people than she.

_Besides…if I were truly that wonderful, than why hasn't Aslan come?_

Unless, of course, there were no Aslan. But Aslan had to live. Because if Aslan lived…then her family did, too.

At last, here she lay alone, feebly gasping out her last breaths._Where was Aslan? _Summoning all of her courage, she finally moved into a sitting position, and levered herself up off the bed. She stood up—though she was unsure how, as her legs should not have been able to support her. And at long last, she dared to voice the words that she had never dared to voice before.

"Aslan," she called out, in a clear, steady voice. "Aslan, where are you?"

"Here!" replied a deep, heartbreakingly familiar voice from behind her.

Slowly, as if in a trance, Susan turned around. And he was there, every bit as glorious and magnificent as he had been in her imagination. No, she corrected herself, not her imagination, but her_past. _Aslan was real…and really, she had always known it to be true.

Looking deeply into his eyes, Susan knew that he had seen her whole heart—more, perhaps, than she had seen herself. There was nothing that needed to be said. He understood everything, everything she had ever done or not done, believed or not believed. But none of it mattered anymore. The past was the past, and now they stood before each other once more.

But there was one question she still had. "Aslan," she said softly, breaking her gaze away from his mesmerizing eyes. "Why were you never there before? I looked for you…where were you?"

"Child," the great Lion replied in his deep, gentle voice, "I have been here the whole time, always behind you. All you ever needed to do was turn around, and you would have seen."

Raising her head, Susan's eyes met his once more, and the love and compassion she saw there was so absolute that she couldn't help herself; she ran forward and flung her arms around his neck, burying her face in his mane and breathing in his warm, sweet scent, so familiar and so long forgotten.

It might have been centuries, it might have been seconds—Susan would never know. But at last she stepped away from him, and the Lion blew gently on her face.

"So—what happens now?" Susan asked hesitantly. "I'm—well, I'm dying, aren't I?" even as she said this, she paused in confusion. She was standing in the hospital room still, but—no longer was she 80 years old. She might have just turned 16. Looking behind her in consternation, she saw her old self still lying on the hospital bed.

"Aslan?" she asked incredulously.

The Lion laughed, a great, mirthful laugh, and she couldn't help but join in; the sheer joy and merriment of the sound was contagious.

"Susan," said Aslan, his voice full of love and gladness, "It's time to go. Step out of the door."

Turning, she made a move towards the door—which no longer opened into the corridor of the hospital. On the threshold, she paused, and beheld a beautiful, lush, green country before her. The air was so sweet, and so pure…she paused and closed her eyes, and then stepped through the doorway.

The hospital room behind her disappeared, and all there was around her was green. And yet Aslan was still there.

As she looked around, Susan finally realized where she was.

"Narnia," she said softly, and as she said the word, tears of joy sprang to her eyes and flowed unchecked down her face. The country was achingly familiar, and more beautiful than she remembered. This, she realized, was more truly _Narnia _than the Narnia she had known ever had been.

"Aslan?" she cried suddenly, turning to face the Lion, hope and expectation flashing across her face. "My family…they're here too, aren't they? Peter, and Edmund, and Lucy?"

Once more Aslan laughed, and licking her face, he bounded off towards the horizon, calling back to her, "Further up and further in!"

A smile, full of peace and happiness and hope, crossed her face, and she took off after him, bounding across the green terrain as she had never dreamed she would be able to.

At last…at long, long last…

She had found Aslan. And she had finally come home.


End file.
